“Is Clyde on your books, too?” I asked.
“Yup. Probably working as a team. I was thinking of calling you in, but you’ve saved me the trouble.”
“Or Mick did,” I pointed out.
“No honour among thieves, you mean. Wrong. The body was cold, killed yesterday sometime, rigor still present, so probably afternoon or evening. Unlikely Clyde would have carefully driven her here if he’d had a hand in her death.”
“Was the Cord actually registered for the show?” I’d seen the show badge on the Cord’s windscreen but that might be a fake.
“Yup,” Dave said again. “In the name of Philip Stein, registered yesterday. Must be a false name, of course. It’s the major’s car, reported stolen two weeks ago.”
As the major had said. “Bonnie’s handiwork?” I asked.
I must have leapt in too quickly, because Dave picked up my interest. “Fell for her, did you?”
“Couldn’t afford her.” If only.
I stood watching as the pathologist and photographers finished their jobs and departed; everything from old sweet wrappers to ants who’d chosen their paths badly was being packaged as evidence. The body was being removed and I contemplated the thin line between my happy images of the live Bonnie and the silent waste of her dead body. No jeans and T-shirt for Bonnie at such shows. She always came with the thousand-dollar Carla Bruni touch. High heels, slim-fitting dress, large hat. It took Bonnie to bring these ingredients to life. Had they also brought her to her death?
“What was she wearing?” I asked Dave abruptly.
“Skirt, bling, blouse — good stuff. She’d had sex not long before her death, no signs of force, though.”
I didn’t want to think about that. “Tell me about these thefts.” Safer ground.
“Quite of lot of classic cars disappearing over the last year. You should know.”
“All from shows?”
“Wrong. Taken from hotel forecourts, car parks, all sorts of places.”
“What’s in common that makes you think it’s one gang’s work?”
“Too many of them in the last year. Not doing too well at the game if it’s a gang at work, though. Most of the cars have been found abandoned, unharmed, and returned to their owners.”
I frowned. “Odd. I wouldn’t have put Bonnie down as the joy-riding sort. Not worth her while. And yet, as you say, it doesn’t sound as though our Bonnie and Clyde made much money out of their illicit business if so many have proved so hot to handle they’ve had to be dumped.”
“Right. Smells a bit, I thought. The case of this Cord is out of line with the other thefts. It was returned to its owner, and it was harmed, if you count the bad paint job as harm.”
“The body disposal was out of line, too.”
“Car rage?” Dave asked hopefully. “Major so hopping mad over his car that he bumped Eva Crowley off?”
I looked at him kindly. “He doesn’t look two cents short of a dollar to me. He could afford a repaint. Why risk killing her?”
Dave shrugged. “Just an idea. I’ve never charged a castle owner before.” He looked rather wistfully at the majestic backdrop of Broadmead Castle. It’s small and young as castles go, but nevertheless part of it is definitely a late medieval turreted fortress. The rest of it lies scattered around in ruins, and the major and his wife inhabit the bit that has been built on relatively recently, i.e., the late eighteenth century. “Risky of Bonnie and Clyde to plan to bring the car back here if they were responsible for the paint job.”
“If it was them. If they’re car thieves at all. Any proof of that?”
“No. Looks a valid line of enquiry to me, though.”
“A weird one.” There was no getting round the fact that Bonnie had been killed yesterday, so indeed, why should the body have been brought here today? “Have you sorted out the order of the other dozen cars that came in with me?”
“A dozen different versions of it at the moment. The only thing that seems certain is that Johnnie Darling got here first in his Porsche. He’d have to be here first to man the gate. His number-two in the Austin-Healey was next. After that we’re in the realm of endless permutations.” Dave gave me a sardonic look. “When did you get here, Jack? Who did you see?”
I was caught. I’d got out of my beloved Gordon-Keeble, given it a loving pat or two, and then I’d spotted the Cord. “I didn’t pay any attention to what was around me until after I’d called you. Got here nine-fifteenish, saw the red horror, and went straight over to it.”
“Cuff him, Mulligan,” Dave said amiably to the inspector, who had spotted me and was looking for easy prey. On this friendly note, Dave left me to my fate and disappeared back through the crime-scene entrance. I could see Mulligan’s train of thought. First on the scene. Must be guilty. Luckily, several witnesses had seen me arrive in my Gordon-Keeble, and my yell of shock was only a few minutes after that. Even Mulligan gave up on me, temporarily at least. I could see him mentally concocting a revised scenario: killed her last night, drove Cord in, dumped it, rushed to shin over the wall out of the grounds and pick up Gordon-Keeble parked round the corner. No, I reminded myself, silly scenarios were my territory. Police worked from evidence towards a theory — or so I hoped. Then I remembered my fingerprints were on that car. I’d supported myself with one hand to peer more closely at that blanket on the backseat. That was evidence of a sort.
I still couldn’t quite take the whole gruesome business in. For me, Bonnie was the girl on the bonnet, not a corpse in the backseat. I now had to wrestle with the fact that she could be a thief. Not proven, but I had to admit it did add up. It didn’t affect my image of her, however, as the joyous girl with the come-hither eyes.
When Mulligan reluctantly left me, a disappointed man, I couldn’t bear the sight of the crime scene any longer and went back to the tent where the other interned witnesses were huddled together, either waiting their turn at the interrogation tent or relieved that it was over and filling in the time to their release date. Bonnie was known to at least half of those present, and the talk was more animated now that there seemed to be no doubt who the victim was or that the car was the major’s. A series of rhetorical questions was still being repeated time and time again on the lines of:
“Who would dump a stolen car in the grounds of its owner, anyway?”
“Who would want to kill Bonnie?”
And of course, “Who the hell painted that Cord in triple red?”
Unfortunately, no one provided any answers or even theories. A lot flew through my mind. Maybe Bonnie was having an affair with someone at the show, and Mick took exception to it? Problem: Why risk bringing her back here? Maybe Mick didn’t know the Cord was stolen? Problem: He and Bonnie were close enough for him to have murdered her, so he must have known that. Maybe it wasn’t Mick who drove it here but her murderer, who then made his escape on foot? Problem: Why bring it here when it could have been left anywhere? Conclusion: there was a connection with this show in particular. Which still didn’t answer the final question: Why paint the car those disgusting shades of clashing red, which would devalue the car and make it stand out?
Possible answers to that? Firstly, to make the owner hopping mad — but why add that to the insult of having stolen it? Secondly, to disguise it for onward transmission to the Continent. Disfiguring, certainly, but anyone who would pay six figures to buy it could afford a repaint job. Thirdly, a falling out among thieves. Had Bonnie decided to annoy Mick, or vice versa? If Bonnie had an affection for the car, it could be Mick wanting to ruin it for her. Or — a brainwave this — suppose Mick either wasn’t her partner or not her only partner in crime. These thefts hadn’t been from shows, but it was highly possible that they had all been at shows. Which meant Bonnie could have seen them. Which meant someone might have tipped her off in advance as to what to look for. Someone like Johnnie Darling...